Sports Digest
A round-up of today's other stories in brief
Cuban heavyweight great Stevenson dies at age 60
Cuban heavyweight boxing great Teofilo Stevenson, who won three Olympic gold medals but decided to turn down an opportunity to fight Muhammad Ali for $5 million in a hotly-anticipated bout, has died of a heart attack at the age of 60, Cuban state media reported on Monday.
Stevenson won Olympic gold medals in 1972 at the Munich Games, 1976 in Montreal and 1980 in Moscow and was widely considered to be the greatest amateur boxer of his time.
After the 1976 Games, US boxing promoters offered Stevenson $5 million to turn professional and fight Ali, then heavyweight champion of the world.
But he stayed loyal to the Cuban revolution, which outlawed professional sports, and refused.
“What is $1 million compared to the love of 8 million Cubans?” he reportedly said in turning down the fight.
After his fighting career finally came to an end, Stevenson went on to become a coach of Cuban boxers and also served as vice-president of the Cuban Boxing Federation.
Rangers face liquidation
Rangers have been consigned to liquidation after Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs decided to reject an offer from Charles Green’s consortium. The decision means Green’s Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) will fail to achieve the 75 per cent backing needed from creditors.
Green will now push ahead with plans to buy the club’s assets for €6.9 million in the coming days with both HMRC and Ticketus, the other major creditors, not expected to challenge the newco purchase deal he has struck with administrators Duff and Phelps.
But there is no guarantee the new entity will be able to play in the Clydesdale Bank Premier League. SPL clubs would themselves decide on any application to acquire the club’s share and could impose sanctions. Dundee United chairman Stephen Thompson last week doubted whether Rangers would have enough support and some fans have been rallying their clubs to reject any proposal.
A “newco” Rangers would not be allowed to play in Europe for three years and Green faces the prospect of losing players.
Bowlers get in the swing of things on opening day
Some good work from the bowlers helped Ireland ‘A’ end day one of their three-day game against their Scottish counterparts on decent terms at Uddingston in Glasgow yesterday.
Ireland could only manage 181 in their first innings and 53 of those runs came in a final-wicket stand of 59 between Trent Johnston (42 not out) and Allan Eastwood (28).
Johnston is in the team to get some bowling practice ahead of the senior clash with Australia on Saturday week and he came back well from conceding 16 runs from his first over to finish with one for 26 from eight overs.
